Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too by Carol Novello & Ginny Graves

Author:Carol Novello & Ginny Graves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-04-08T23:00:00+00:00

Why Animals Provide Hope for Addicts—and Those Who Treat Them

Research is beginning to show that Gemma’s and Sarah’s experiences aren’t unusual. In 2016, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction conducted its Canadian Life in Recovery survey, including, for the first time, questions about pets. In a general sense, the 855 respondents in recovery said they were doing well. Nearly 91 percent reported their quality of life in recovery was good or better than good; almost one-third said it was excellent. As hopeful, one section of the survey asked what informal supports participants used and found important to their recovery. Nearly 72 percent of respondents said they used pets as a source of support, and 88 percent said pets were a somewhat (32 percent) or very (60 percent) important aspect of recovery. Pets’ importance ranked above other stay-well approaches like having a healthy nutrition or diet plan, engaging in art, poetry, or writing, and utilizing websites that support recovery.

“At its heart, addiction is about disconnection—from yourself or your traumatic past or the people who care about you in your life,” explains Colleen Dell, PhD, a professor of sociology at the University of Saskatchewan, who specializes in animals and addiction treatment but wasn’t directly involved in the survey. “There’s so much stigma and shame with addiction it causes people to withdraw and to avoid reaching out for help. But animals don’t judge or criticize or blame, so having an animal in therapy is an effective way to short-circuit the shame and stigma and get people to open up.”

Adding a dog to a therapy session gives individuals recovering from addiction a being they can touch and hug, too—and that can be an important aspect of recovery. “Healthy touch can be extremely healing for people who’ve experienced trauma or who have anxiety—which includes the majority of people who struggle with substance abuse,” Dell told us. “In my work, I’ve seen that the more hardened and disconnected a person is, the more benefit a therapy animal can have. And once an animal opens someone’s heart, it creates a receptive space for building relationships with other people—therapists, support groups, or friends and family.”

Reestablishing those connections can be an important factor in turning an addict away from substance use and toward recovery, agrees Bethany Ranes of Hazelden Betty Ford. After reviewing the literature on using animal-assisted therapy in the treatment of substance abuse, Ranes concluded that an animal can support and solidify the therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient. “When there’s a strong relationship between a therapist and client, relapse rates and re-admittance rates decline considerably. In the treatment realm, we’re constantly trying to find ways to strengthen that bond—so it’s thrilling and hopeful to find that animals are a viable way to do it.”

Researchers from Kentucky compared a group of substance use patients who received animal-assisted therapy to those who didn’t. They found that, regardless of the person—no matter their gender or whether they were pet owners or what types of substances they abused

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